GREENSBORO, N.C. — Delegates to the annual meeting of the N.C. Baptist State Convention voted overwhelmingly this week to expel Charlotte’s Myers Park Baptist for welcoming gays and lesbians without trying to change them.

The liberal church of 1,970 members became the first to be kicked out under rules passed at last year’s meeting that said any Baptist church that affirmed or endorsed homosexual behavior would be considered “not in friendly cooperation with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.”

Six other churches out of more than 4,000, including three in Charlotte, quit the Baptist State Convention to protest those rules regarding homosexuality. The six called them a violation of local autonomy.

But instead of voluntarily exiting the increasingly conservative state convention, Myers Park admitted — in two letters to convention leaders — that it was in violation of the rules and sought to make its case to the more than 2,300 delegates, or “messengers” meeting this week.

Also Tuesday, a majority of the delegates approved the first step in cutting state convention funding and official ties to five North Carolina Baptist colleges that want to begin naming their own trustees, including Wingate University in Union County and Gardner-Webb University in Cleveland County.

At a news conference Tuesday, leaders of the convention acknowledged that the organization is in transition as North Carolina’s religious landscape changes with the times and long-given denominational ties weaken or disappear.

The Rev. Stan Welch, the state convention’s president, put a positive spin on what some have called a splintering of the organization representing the state’s largest denomination.

Though he insisted the convention will continue to have a hand in higher education and serving the elderly, the disengagements “will allow us to focus on things we consider very important (including) evangelism, missions and church planting,” said Welch, pastor at West Asheville Baptist.

The vote to expel Myers Park Baptist came after two leaders of the church called on the convention to open their hearts to homosexuals who want to worship with them and to respect local Baptist churches’ autonomy.

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